Salt

Columbia

Rating: 14A

100 minutes

Salt is an above average summer popcorn movie.

It’s a lot like Knight and Day, only the story is more believable despite some unbelievable plot turns, and the incredible stunts are more creditable.

Angelina Jolie plays a CIA agent who gets to interrogate a Russian defector who walks in off the street one day. He reveals that a CIA traitor named Salt is about to assassinate the Russian president visiting New York.

Of course, since her name is Salt she is now suspected of being a double agent. Soon she is on the run in the first of a series of exciting action sequences as she escapes from a CIA complex.

Action is the theme of this movie and we follow the appealing Jolie from one slam bang sequence to another. This is her movie and she inhabits it perfectly. Her character’s got more moves than Jason Bourne and makes James Bond seem pedestrian.

For a long time we don’t get to know where her real loyalties reside, despite the belief of her boss (Liev Schreiber) that she is innocent and that of another agent (Chiwetel Ejiofor) that she’s guilty.

Like most of these pictures what’s happening on the screen in terms of action and plot are not very believable, but that doesn’t make this movie less entertaining.

It ends with the obvious set-up for a sequel, and while sequels nearly always disappoint, for once this reviewer is looking forward to it.

Rating: four deer of five

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Kick-Ass is about an average teenager who decides to pretend to be a superhero, with some amazing results.

Alf Cryderman is a Red Deer freelance writer and old movie buff.